Amy Welborn blogs at Charlotte Was Both every day - usually at least twice.
She writes on a variety of topics, including faith, culture, politics, film, books and more.
A recent entry:
A few weeks ago, I was a part of a conversation with some local Catholic fellows, all maybe a bit older than I – early to mid-70’s. The challenge of understanding one of our local non-native English speaking priests came up and one of the men said something like,
“It’s fine – I mean when I was growing up, the whole Mass was in a language we didn’t understand!” And he and the others went on – not in a Twitter-post kind of rabid way, just remembering – what it had been like for them to, in their own recollections, to go to Mass in Latin, to see their parents and grandparents absorbed in their own rosaries during Mass, and what a obviously welcome change it was to attend Mass in the vernacular.
They continued, mentioning the existence of those who disagree, and the tone was -as I’ve experienced many times before in this type of conversation with this age group – just baffled about why anyone would want to worship that way, the way they were so relieved to put behind them. Again, these are super nice guys, so the tone wasn’t judgmental or contemptuous – just perplexed. Mystified, even.
Someone mentioned the TLM parish in town (there are two in the diocese, the other in Huntsville.) Now, this parish is on the other side of the city , but it’s not at all small, lots of folks go there, and the church building is one of the most beautiful and historic (Deco Romanesque style) in the diocese, but nonetheless, I was surprised how vague their awareness of it was – to the extent they weren’t really sure of its name.
Once again, you never know what you’ll find outside of your bubble. And I’m not talking about their bubble – I’m talking about the bubble in which this issue is, well, the Main Character, 24/7.
Not saying that’s a bad stance to take. Life on earth is made of a zillion pieces, and each of those pieces is the particular interest, obsession and expertise of someone and even if I don’t know a thing about it, it matters and even makes the world go round.
But all the same, it’s so important for anyone with a particular cause or interest to nurture a sense of perspective, an awareness of how your cause is perceived, how it fits into the big picture, and how others who disagree with your perspective think and why.
That is, to get accustomed to steelmanning rather than strawmanning.
Now, you know me. There’s going to be another side, isn’t there?
A Gen Z Catholic of my acquaintance attended, for two weeks in a row, two different Catholic parishes devoted to the Suburban Rite. You can probably imagine: Mostly older crowd, no males in the sanctuary except for the priest, no ceremonial to speak of, a casual presiding style, including some ad-libbing even outside of the times when “these or other words” are permitted to the point where, with one of the Masses, he wondered if it were valid, lots of friendly banter and meaningful gestures meant to communicate warmth and welcoming, including the very emphatic “sisters and brothers” throughout, and of course, music that’s either stuck in around 1989 or a wan rendition of the latest Catholic Praise and Worship repertoire.
He, too, was mystified.
